


Competing with a Dead Man

by somethin_random (wordsaremyfaith)



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Angst, F/M, Ficlet, M/M, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-16
Updated: 2005-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-16 09:38:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4620486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsaremyfaith/pseuds/somethin_random
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>More of a cathartic ficlet than anything. I'm pretty sure the thing I put in about Metamorphmagi isn't accurate.  For <span class="ljuser i-ljuser i-ljuser-type-C"></span><a class="i-ljuser-profile" href="http://15minuteficlets.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://15minuteficlets.livejournal.com/"><b>15minuteficlets</b></a>' <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/community/15minuteficlets/14615.html">Word #46</a>.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Competing with a Dead Man

**Author's Note:**

> More of a cathartic ficlet than anything. I'm pretty sure the thing I put in about Metamorphmagi isn't accurate. For [](http://15minuteficlets.livejournal.com/profile)[**15minuteficlets**](http://15minuteficlets.livejournal.com/)' [Word #46](http://www.livejournal.com/community/15minuteficlets/14615.html).

She should know better than to try to compete with a dead man.

She should, but she doesn’t. The truth is, she doesn’t know. And when she does, it makes no difference. It’s not even that she wants _him_ so much – she just wants solace, and a reminder that there was life before the first war, and he’s _there_.

And if her hair turns a little more brown and a little less pink, or her hands feel a little more empty while she bides her time, well, that’s the cost of this competition. Because death is final – but she’s young and has years to go yet, if she doesn’t get killed on the job. And that’s what she has to promise him – her youth. She can smooth out the premature wrinkles on his face and ignore the scars she finds all over.

The advantage of being a Metamorphmagus is that she can change into animals, too, and does – and so she can be there with him on the full-moon nights, though that’s small comfort when his pack is gone for the second and last time.

It feels like an ending, though, not a beginning, and it feels like they’d have to be pushed together. She doesn’t want that, but she doesn’t know if she really wants this, either – she just wants a warm body to curl into at night. And so does he. But her warm body is the wrong shape and form, too concave in the wrong places, and the one he wants is warm no longer.

So all she can do is try. But one day she’ll get tired of endlessly competing with her dead cousin and then she’ll have to give up. In the meantime, she sighs and chews her plain brown hair and waits.


End file.
